What does Migration mean for me?
Bluesky is very different from other social media platforms, because it was built to be decentralized on the open-source ATprocotol (also developed by Bluesky PBC). That is the fundamental design-choice that has allowed groups like Blacksky and Northsky to operate our own instances of ATprotocol infrastructure.
We’ve created this short video to help explain what Migration is, without a lot of technical jargon.
Moving to Northsky means:
- You keep all your following, posts, media blobs, list subscriptions, etc...
- You can get a .northsky.social handle, or keep your current custom domain handle.
- Your data is hosted in Canada and subject to Canadian laws.
- Our moderation team is made up of members from marginalized groups, especially the 2SLGBTQIA community, and make decisions based on OUR Terms of Service and Community Guidelines (not Bluesky’s)
- Protection from account-level takedowns by Bluesky Moderation at the PDS level (locking you out of your account). Please note, Bluesky can still hide your content with an appview-level ban. Releasing our own apps and appview is part of Northsky’s next phase of work, alongside scaling up our own moderation capabilities, and further decoupling from Bluesky Moderation.
- We generate you a “Rotation Key” that lets you migrate your account to another PDS, even in a “hostile exit scenario”, in the unlikely event your account is banned on our server.
- You can migrate back to Bluesky’s servers, even after joining Northsky, as long as your account originated there.
If you have more questions, please read our Migration FAQ, and if that doesn’t have an answer for you, contact us using the information at the bottom of the newsletter!
